


loved by the sun

by ten_and_a_rose



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Not A Fix-It, Not Not A Fix-It, Post-Episode: s02e04 The Girl in the Fireplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:19:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5722516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ten_and_a_rose/pseuds/ten_and_a_rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>God but she didn't half hate this.</i>
</p>
<p>Not really a fix-it, but not not a fix-it either...<br/>Written for <a href="timepetalsprompts.tumblr.com">timepetalsprompts</a> prompt "sparkle."</p>
            </blockquote>





	loved by the sun

_One minute and twelve seconds._

Rose tore herself away from the wall clock and stared anxiously out her Mum’s window, down into the courtyard.  She winced, tasting blood and discovering she’d chewed her thumbnail raw.

God but she didn’t half hate this.  It was the sixth time he’d gone away without her – at least that she knew of.  They’d fallen into a pattern, one that had repeated itself today.  She protested; he jammed his hands into his pockets with a hard look in his eyes.  They stared at each other, locked in a standoff for a half-second until his expression softened and he told her the same thing he always did.  She couldn’t come with him this time, but he would be back.  He would be safe and he would return – “two minutes, Rose, really!”  But she knew better.  He never said where or why he was going, and after many a rough landing, after twelve hours became twelve months and later, when they showed up a century too early for an Ian Dury concert, she knew her worry was not unfounded.

So she waited, always waited and watched in silent countdown.  Three times he’d been exactly on the mark but once, two minutes had become two hours.  Worse, there was that one awful incident that had dragged a hundred and twenty seconds into two agonising days, and she’d begun to fear he was trapped or dead.

Or just not coming back for her.

He’d been sorry, so sorry, and she did not doubt his sincerity, but the fear of being left behind was always there gnawing away at the edges.  Especially now that Sarah Jane and a very recent French fireplace had taught her more than she wanted to know.

_One minute and eighteen seconds._

Frowning as her nerves grew, it finally hit her what she felt like at that very moment.  She felt – she felt like a _pet_.  She imagined this was what a nervous puppy endured awaiting his master’s return.

_One minute and twenty-three seconds._

But that wasn’t right, really, was it?  It was far too human, and the Doctor was – _more_. Her mind lit upon an unwelcome memory, a fairy story from her childhood.  A young moth became entranced with the radiance of the brightest flame she’d ever seen, the one that hung high above and rained down light that made the whole world sparkle and glitter.  It seemed to be calling out, beckoning her to come to it.  One day she could no longer resist the urge to go and she flew away, heedless of her mother’s cries.  She fluttered up into the sky, higher and higher, and the further she went the stronger its pull.

But no matter how fast she moved, her destination was no closer.

Despairing and exhausted, the little creature, such a tiny thing, finally realised she could never reach the fire above her – it was not for her, no matter how much she longed for it.  She’d flown so very high, staring at her desire so intently she could no longer see anything else.  Then the stiff, cold wind began to buffet her delicate wings, and eventually she could fly no more.

So she gave up, and she fell.

_One minute and forty-seven seconds._

Rose had been overwhelmed with sadness for the little moth and she hadn’t understood, not really.  But now…  She was no moth, but she was only human, a stupid little ape.

A stupid ape in love with the sun.

_…forty-eight seconds…_

Well, wasn’t this a low point.

_…forty-nine seconds…_

Wait.

_…fifty seconds…_

There it was!

_Yes!_

Her face morphed into a broad grin as the distinctive grinding wheeze of the Tardis, of _home_ and _him_ , filled her ears.  Despite herself, despite _everything_ , she raced gleefully out the door and bounded down the steps toward that wondrous blue box.

She burst into the open space and caught him striding toward her with affection in his eyes and a smile that eclipsed everything else around her.  He _oofed_ in surprise as she launched herself against him, then he laughed and folded her into an embrace closer than any she’d ever remembered.

Something dawned on her.  “You’re ten seconds early,” she murmured against the beating of his hearts.

His hold on her tightened a fraction.  He nuzzled her ear with his nose and whispered, “I missed you.”

Amazed, she felt the words race through every cell in her body and obliterate her doubts, wash it all away.

On the small planet Earth, in the middle of a grubby estates commons scrawled with graffiti and littered with trash, she stood enveloped in his arms and thought…

Maybe, _just maybe_ , the sun loved her as well.


End file.
